Tashan

For all those who haven’t seen this movie due to lack of interest/bad reviews/ time kahan milta hai/ main office main bahut busy hoon, its time to reschedule your thinking of orthodox perspectives, leave your brain behind your PC and enjoy this movie. Ask me why? We have seen the likes of this many times over BUT none has been executed this professionally. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the epitome of the great Hindi masala movie. Ask me how?

The story has the classical theme from the genre of James Hadley Chase novels where interesting episodes are woven together to form a story, which is there but you can always predict what’s going to happen next. In there lies the excellence of the movie making craft in making the predictable interesting. The flashbacks have been artfully deployed for proper narration as also the stage whispers which have been effectively used to shove the story forward. The editing is slick and the action fast paced. I wonder if the audience has properly appreciated the action. Before eulogizing let me explain. The action in this movie is sublime and gross. It’s the gross you carry in your memory. But Bollywood has finally paid homage to the kung fu genre of movie/craft after a long time. The exaggerated and the gross violence have an eminent precedent. His Eminence Run Run Shaw of the Golden Harvest Productions fame made this genre a craze way back into the 70s. He was the guy who introduced Bruce Lee. Every Chinese movie of his with crazy names like “Snake in the monkey’s shadow” or “The drunken Shaolin Monk” had the hero fighting a couple of dozen guys and blasting all of them with a single roundhouse kick.

Most of the songs could have been done without but I love the improved quality of extras dancing in the background. Of course Sukhwinder’s rendering of “Very happy in my heart, dil dance mare re” is out of this world.  The locales of the Mediterranean and Ladakh are breathtaking

Kareena has chiseled her body to perfection and is one of the few Bollywood heroines who look stunning in a bikini. Now whether it’s a before or after a Saif development I would leave to the gossip mongers but Man she looks like an angel with a deceptively innocent smile. Her vivacity comes across like a whiff of fresh air. Saif is his usual competent self. I am partial to Akshay Kumar , so whatever I may say about him will seem biased. But his characterization of the UP local hoodlum ought to win him a few awards.

Anil Kapoor deserves a separate paragraph. Bhaiya ji, has rendered am exemplary performance as a killer don desperately wanting fluency in English. Saif is the Guru ji employed to teach and for all his efforts what comes across is an amazing mix of English and Hindi from the streets of Kanpur. A scene or two could have been managed by everyone but carrying it through the entire movie is a feat for which Kapoor as well the script writer deserve kudos. The sequence where he recreates in Hinglish the unforgettable monologue of Amitabh Bachhan from Deewar. “Aaj khush to bahut hoge tum” turns into “Lots happy you must be”. But let me not play the spoiler. This you need to experience yourself. Celebrate the gross and the ordinary and enjoy

Although he is back shooting now, Big B was hurt for the second time on the sets of Sujoy Ghosh’s mega fantasy Alladin. With full-on action scenes, there is bound to be injury but this last incident was scary. The first injury was his wrist, but this time Big B was performing a kick for a fight when suddenly his back gave way and the 65-year-young actor was in excruciating pain. He was then rushed to the hospital for an MRI.
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The girls are back home in the US and working on the promotional material for the soundtrack to their upcoming movie, Cheetah Girls: One World, airing in August 22 on Disney channel.

Here is the link to a video shot while they were in India -
Rocking India

And here is the link to an interview with Access Hollywood’s Laura Saltman

I hadn’t been to a movie theatre since mid February and was beginning to get withdrawal symptoms. I am so glad that I ended this sabbatical with Shaurya. For once I happily overlooked that the story is a straight lift of “A Few Good Men” and thoroughly enjoyed the drama adapted to the Indian context.

The story is about the Court Martial of an army officer accused of killing a fellow officer. He maintains a silence on his guilt or otherwise. Two friends in the JAG branch are transferred to the accused officer’s place of incarceration to take on the roles of the opposing counsels in the trial. What is supposed to be an open and shut case takes another dimension when a chirpy journalist, the forgettable Minnisha Lamba, introduces some doubts in the mind of the defence counsel, Rahul Bose. In a happy go lucky and devil may care life a sense of purpose is introduced. The movie is as much about the awakening of maturity of the dedicated to fun Mr Rahul Bose as about the ready to die for his convictions Mr Deepak Dobriyal who plays, ah what else, but a conscientious and a nationalist Muslim army officer. The evil that men do find a persona in the character of Brig Pratap who confuses every Muslim with the demon who had wiped out his family. KK does immense justice to this characterization with his usual professional competence. Deepak Dobriyal rides the movie with a searing intensity which flows from his glowing eyes. Javed Jaffery like me is at last beginning to look old but still, like me retains his sense of fun. He sizzled a bit in the beginning of the movie, a totally unnecessary dance number accompanying the not so sizzling Rosa of the Saif fame. It’s a bit tragic to see the could be Begum of Pataudi reduced to an item number.

The songs are forgettable, the background music is tremendous and the photography is good. It was great to watch shots of Patiala’s Mahindra College and the beauty of Manali which is supposed to be Kashmir in the movie.

A word again about the two principal players in the movie. I admire Rahul Bose on many counts. He lives life the way he wants to. Does movies, plays in the national Rugby team, stays single and remains fit. Deepak Dobriyal, for the uninformed is an Uttarakhandi and my parochial Uttarakhandi chhamak challo has decided that he is the real hero of the movie. So as of this evening my children have a new Mama. So what does this have to with the movie? I feel that both of them bring freshness to the cinema that at least I have been yearning for some time. Both are young and different and harbingers of a new era. Cheers and amen to that.

Bollywood playback singer Sonu Nigam and Big 92.7 FM radio station have collaborated on the “Sing with Sonu” contest. The goal of the contest is to provide a platform for India’s aspiring singers.
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